Race Report - Part 1 - Michigan Coast to Coast Gravel Grinder May 12-13, 2018

Prelude—Mile 74.3

“You tried this race to find out if you could do it, and you found out. Today, you can’t.”

                The road isn’t on Google Maps. You have to pull up the satellite picture to see it, but Google still doesn’t acknowledge it’s a road. It doesn’t have a name—the race que sheet calls it “Two track road (0.25 miles after Rogers).” None of the roads nearby have been traveled by Google’s famous camera cars, either. No car, short of a military 4x4, could travel this road today. We are well and truly in the middle of nowhere.

                I wasn’t expecting a remote forest road this early in the ride (early? I’ve already logged over 70 miles). I knew they would be coming later as we venture into the heart of Manistee National Forest, but that’s another 70 miles away, give or take.

                There is still fallout from the previous night’s rain, and I’m frustrated by it. I’ve been slogging through a muddy, soft road for the past 20 miles, my heartrate is skyrocketing into the redline, and my overall pace is slowing, slowing, slowing. Potholes—if you can have potholes in a remote dirt road—have filled with water and graduated into ponds. I slow to a crawl as I try to follow the tire marks from the nearly 200 cyclists to already pass for the best line to route around them. My tires are slipping, first one and then the other trying to catch up, all despite the generous width and new tread. My bike is sturdy, reliable, but it is not nimble. This road, it’s made of sand and it’s growing soft. I have prepared for dirt, gravel, and even a little mud, but not sand. I’m not riding a fat tire bike.

                I’m way behind schedule, and I’m burning too much energy for so early in the race. My right knee has a sharp pain with every pedal stroke. It’s not bad right now, but it’s only going to get worse and I’ve barely crossed the one-third mark of the race.

                When the road finally clears up, I pull over to the side for a quick break. I take a couple of deep breaths, eat some food, and fill up my water bottle from my hydration bladder. When the bottle is three quarters filled, the flow of water sputters and comes to a stop. I’ve made a grave miscalculation—I didn’t fill my bladder with water at the last stop because I thought it was nearly full. Instead of getting two full bottles of water out of it, I’m not even going to get one. The sun is finally out, the temperature is at its apex, and I’ve got less than a bottle of water to last me for the next 35 miles.

                “This is not fun anymore. I don’t even want to ride to the end of this stage. I have to, but that’s it, I’m done after that. I quit.  You wanted to do this race to find out if you could, and you found out. Today, you can’t.”

Read Part 2 Here